Police union, city to begin talks

Published 1:00 am, Thursday, May 25, 2006

DANBURY - The city and its police department union will begin negotiating in June about changes Chief Al Baker has proposed to improve the department.

The
Common Council
reviewed Baker's proposal and approved the changes, but that is only one step in the process.

Now the union and city have to negotiate pay raises to union members who have more work because of the restructuring.

In a separate union/city event, the two parties negotiated away a lawsuit the union filed against the city in April over the collective bargaining decision reached on March 15.

The city and union gave something to each of them in the compromise. The union members will get roughly half of their insurance payment back that they paid for coverage during the three-year contract negotiation. The union wanted all of it returned.

That meant the city got to keep the other half of the money.

The union asked that heart and hypertension victims be treated the same way as other people who suffer disabilities, and in the compromise, the union won this issue.

"It was in the best interest of the city and union to move this forward," said Finance Director
Dena Diorio
.

"Everybody was able to get a little something," said Danbury Mayor
Mark Boughton
. "This compromise saved the union and city money."

In regards to the department reorganization, the union, Local 891, Council 15 of AFSCME, wants to make sure its members are paid for any extra work.

"We have to sit down and talk it over," said
Mike Farrell
, union president. "We have to make it work for everyone."

Farrell said one problem the officers see is the new structure reduced the number of captains at the department from six to four. He said before this change each of the three patrol shifts had its own captain. Now one captain is in charge of the three shifts.

The city didn't fire anyone to make this change. Capt.
Terry Shanahan
was promoted to deputy chief and Capt.
Arthur Sullo
retired in 2005.

"What this does is plateau out promotions," Farrell said.

Boughton said that while there are two fewer captains, which is the rank just below deputy chief, there are now three new sergeant positions.

"They'll have more work and they'll deserve more money," Boughton said. "We'll negotiate how much."

Boughton and Farrell said they expect the negotiations to start in June.